Jars

I entered into a writing competition last month, I didn't win but I was a semi-finalist! Figured I would post the poem, and the link with the "honorable mention" - http://mormonartist.net/2012/01/mormon-lit-blitz-finalists/ (I'm just a small name in a small paragraph but hey, it's my name!)

Jars
Jars
Jars that sit empty
Jars that sit full
Full of candies
Full of paint
Full of brushes

Jars
Some with lids
Some without
Ones that sit pell-mell
across the shelves
A room full of jars

Jars to collect
mementos of the past
Jars to reflect
on treasures of the heart
Jars
All once full of peaches
pears
plums
All once full of juices
jellies
jams

Jars that Grandmother’s wrinkled, arthritic hands

have washed for years  Jars that have seen
seasons of fruit
seasons of frost
and passed through so many hands
Hands of sisters
Hands of mothers
Hands of aunts
and hands of others

Jars that hold the echoes
of August conversations
Jars which come to finally sit
upon these shelves
to be filled with objects of forgetting
and objects of remembering

A jar of thread
A jar of scissors
A jar with a spider, enclosed in the glass
A jar with a flashlight, standing upright
Jars once regal in their purpose
once lovingly filled
now stand
oddly placed along the shelves
catching the waning light of autumn
dwindling to mere decoration